


let all our singing follow him

by druidforhire



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: Post-Canon, References to Depression, and a very very brief reference to suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 08:09:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18774670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/druidforhire/pseuds/druidforhire
Summary: Musings on Orpheus, and how he fares after he fails.





	let all our singing follow him

It's _hard,_ after Hadestown. It's soul crushing. It's terrible. His whole world has been ripped out from him and it's all his fault, and Eurydice will be there forever, and he will have to live on without her, except he doesn't _want_ to.

 

But she doesn't want him to come down. And despite it all, he doesn't want to take the train.

 

Instead he resorts to the last thing he can rely on.

 

He picks up his lyre through his tears—tries his hardest not to rip the strings out and snap the thing in two, because past his grief, he's just so angry with himself, hateful of himself. Instead of clawing at his skin, he picks up his lyre and sings of his pain. He sings and the whole world weeps and goes cold, even when Persephone steps into the surface soon after.

 

Even if he _really_ wanted to rip his heart out, shred his music and forget everything he lost, bang his head against the stones and crack himself open, he couldn't. It isn't in his nature. Ripping away his world has left a chasm in his heart, but he still has a heart, and it beats.

 

Who he is has changed so much, but what he is remains the same. He could never. He cares too _much,_ and that's always been the thing. And he's afraid. Afraid of the bottle. Afraid of the dark. Afraid of the cruelty he fought so hard against in his songs before Hadestown and afraid of how easy it is to turn to it. He knows now how cruel the world is, but he will continue on as he may.

 

Eurydice, his whole world, has been ripped out of him, but he still had himself before he had her. There’s still some strength in him.

 

Finding that strength, though, takes years and years and years and years and _years_ of raging in the world of the surface. Years and years of tears and immovable grief, of Hermes and Persephone both dropping by to talk to him, to make sure he's doing alright, to make sure he's still singing. (Of course he is. It's his focal point of stability. Despite it all, he's still too afraid to let go.)

 

When the days get better, they get better.

 

Orpheus knows now, better than anyone, about love. He sings about the love of all lovers: Eros and Psyche, Hyacinthus and Apollo, of Ariadne, of Calypso. In his own loss, he has unlocked the love of the world, and he sings its song, and it is _beautiful._

 

There are still days where he wakes up and wonders what use it is, the common horrid man and all his friends, the fanciful festivities, revelries in wine and the winters that follow. If his music is worth it like this. If he should really stay, now that Spring has come back again. He doesn't care that much for it. Those are the days where he doesn't want to pick up that lyre or sing anything anymore; he just wants to go home. (Home where? Home is Eurydice. He can't.) Those are the days he hates himself suddenly and viciously, hates the Earth and all it holds like teeth and dogs and fire and the cuts of barbed wire, weeps like those first days after he lost her, drifting as hollow as the shells of people embittered. (As if he’s not one of them.) Sometimes he breaks down in sobs that are hard and heavy and choking. The eyes and hopes of the Hadestown people sit and fester in the back of his mind, fouled by his failure, and he shakes with the guilt of it. His nights alternate between dreamless and haunted. Sometimes he visits the beauteous sheer cliffs that overlook the river and convinces himself he’s only there for the view.

 

Grey days like these sometimes turn into grey weeks, and the first few times, it takes Hermes picking him up and planting him on his feet and dusting him off, reminding him that if he wanted to just disappear into the woods and find another place, he could. He does. Orpheus becomes a vagrant: a runaway from everywhere.

 

Still—the days are better, always better.

 

He travels far and his name travels farther. His days are… okay. He’s not who he used to be. He doesn’t know if he’s any greater for his grief. He knows more, certainly, but he wonders if he’d be better than this if he hadn’t turned around.

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I threw together in two nights and edited, like, once, so take the writing with a grain of salt.


End file.
